Zerline’s Tale

Three Stars (Good)

Theater: Hartford Stage Company

Location: 50 Church Street, Hartford




HARTFORD – Despite a shockingly cigarette-ravaged voice, Elizabeth Ashley, the Tony Award winning actress, achieved moments of transcendence and magical charisma in her performance as Zerline in the Hartford Stage Company’s production of “Zerline’s Tale,” which runs through Feb. 10.

Truly Ashley’s voice could be the poster child for why cigarette smoking is so vile - it was that distracting, at least initially – improving slightly as the evening progressed. She may have been suffering from a cold, but no trifling winter bug creates that kind of damage.

Ashley is a veteran of the Broadway stage and of television, winning a Tony Award for her performance in “Take Her, She’s Mine,” and creating the role of Corie Bratter opposite Robert Redford in Neil Simon’s original 1963 Broadway production of “Barefoot in the Park.” She also had a recurring role in the television show “Evening Shade” with Burt Reynolds, which ran for four seasons from 1990-1994.

There are two characters in this one act play, but basically it is the “Elizabeth Ashley Show,” with Jon David Casey playing the tenant as the believably intrigued on-stage audience, and Ashley playing the role of a elderly resentful servant to an aging Baroness and her allegedly illegitimate daughter, Hildegard.

And why, might you ask, does Casey’s character show interest in the tale being told? Lust and desire of course. He has a palpable crush on the daughter – a circumstance that has not gone unnoticed by the ever-vigilant super-sleuth servant Zerline.

In fact, the theme of the performance might best be summed up in Zerline’s statement that: “Desire isn’t a weakness – it’s the denial of desire that’s weakness.”

Then again, the theme could also be: “Nostalgia – it ain’t what it used to be.”

Set in the winter of 1923, in post World War I Germany, Ashley’s Zerline tells her own life story of lust, desire, love, jealously, bitterness, and betrayal, which unfolds in a fairytale-like unraveling, slowly seducing the listener and the audience into her word picture.

Philosophical observations are delivered with poetic frankness when Zerline says, like a comet in the night sky “those unforgettable moments which shape us and define us forever are made of what came before and they color everything that comes after.”

There are moments of humor also, as when Zerline, tells of resisting the amorous advances of another, only to bemoan: “He took ‘no’ for an answer.”

The dreamlike reminiscent mood of the play is enhanced by the Alexander Dodge’s set, from the dingy one room apartment, accurately evoking the former ruling class’ slow yet inevitable deterioration, to the mystical forest and symbolic hunting lodge, smoothly ebbing and flowing into view with gentle music by John Gromada.

In the end, thanks in no small part to Ashley’s evocative, earthy, tour-de-force talent, it felt as if many more characters shared the stage with her - including the idolized Baron, along with the ethereal, envied Baroness, the tormented Hildegard, and a lover or two thrown in for good measure.

The play also felt like it ended too soon, but perhaps “Zerline’s Tale” was attempting to live up to that old vaudevillian adage: “Always leave them wanting more.”

It did.

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Production: Adapted from a story by Hermann Broch by Jeremy Sams. Directed by Michael Wilson. Scenic design by Alexander Dodge. Costume design by Jane Greenwood. Lighting design by Howell Binkley. Original music and sound design by John Gromada.

Running time: About 1½ hours, no intermission

Show Times: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday performances at 8 p.m., with matinee performances Sunday and selected Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2 p.m. through Feb. 10.

Tickets: $23 to $64. For further information call their box office at 527-5151, or visit their Web site a www.hartfordstagecompany.org.